"In 17 years as chairman of planning committees which granted hundreds of applications and resulted in the council receiving substantial sums for affordable housing, public realm and other public amenity, I have at all times acted with the independence and probity required by my role," he said.
Meanwhile, for all the good and decent folk who nonetheless secretly pine for somebody to stick it to Sinead O'Connor, New Age angel-talkers, eco-tourists, Peter, Paul and Mary and the other avatars of P.C. probity in our midst, "My Goodness" has to be the year's most sinfully rewarding guilty pleasure.
Jack Straw told the BBC he has "acted with complete probity and integrity throughout my parliamentary career".
If that had been my purpose I would have compared at length his personal probity, morality and behaviour with General Pinochet's a contrast which redounds greatly to the General's advantage.
It is my experience that Italians view with amusement the protestations of probity made by politicians in other countries: convinced that no one would believe them, few Italian politicians bother.
"Throughout my 36-year parliamentary career I took great care to act with probity and to treat the rules of the House of Commons with the greatest respect," he said.
Not, in my view, out of malice or partisanship (although his self-righteousness about his own probity does occasionally grate).
But if we lose, I will have the satisfaction of knowing that my own life has changed and that in following our path with dignity and probity, we set an example of incorruptibility".
Hugh said of his father that "To his life of honest industry, to his example of commercial probity, to his high Christian character, to his training, of me in my early years, to his wise consuls, I owe under God my position in society".
Ronnie's father — my own revered grandfather, Frank, ex-mayor of Poole, freemason, teetotaller, preacher, icon of our family probity, no less — was, according to Olive, as bent as Ronnie.
But I and my family - my father and my two uncles, although they've all gone now - have had an enduring reputation for probity, integrity and honesty," he added.
